1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system wherein a telephone call from a customer is automatically connected to an operator. More particularly, it relates to a system and a method in which, when a call from a customer has been received, calling-subscriber information on the calling customer is acquired using the CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) facility, and in which, using the calling-subscriber information, a database is searched for an operator having ever served the specific customer, so as to automatically connect the customer's call to a telephone set allocated to the specific operator. It relates also to a storage medium which stores therein a program for implementing such automatic connection.
2 . Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, there are a large number of services wherein telephone calls from many and unspecified customers are received so as to take proper measures complying with the customers' needs, such as mail-order sale, a credit service, a service for consulting about products, and a telephone call center. (Here in this specification, all kinds of users, including the users of services in each of which a charge or a substantial equivalent is not involved, shall be termed "customers".) In such services, persons termed "operators" serve the calls received from the customers, respectively. In recent years, automatic response systems have been introduced for offering parts of the services instead of the operators (persons). An example of the systems is a computerized automatic response system intended to improve efficiency, wherein information items are communicated as substitutes for the operators or wherein, before the operators respond, the customers' calls are distributed to sections appropriate for the service contents of the calls, in accordance with inputs entered by the customers after the calls have been received.
Such a system is really suited to communicate information items to the customers unidirectionally in case of, e.g., the notice of the prices of products or the presentation of the specifications of products. Finally, however, the operators must deal with the services of the mail-order sale, the credit service, the service for consulting about products, and the telephone call center as mentioned before, each of which is difficult to be dealt with in "reference manual" fashion or each of which requires delicate dealings.
There has also been introduced an operator connection system wherein, in the situation stated before, the customer's call the service content of which requires the operator's response is automatically connected to the operator. The operator connection system in the prior art operates as follows. When the telephone call from the customer has come in, the telephone number of the customer being a calling source is acquired in a telephone exchange, and it is sent to a computer by the CTI facility.
This CTI facility contains an interface function which, when the telephone exchange has received the customer's call, notifies the computer of the acquired information of the customer side, such as the telephone number, and an interface function which, when the computer requests the telephone exchange to report a line connection or a line connection situation, sends a command therefor to the telephone exchange.
Besides, as disclosed in the official gazette of Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication (Tokkaihei) No. 05-165862 (entitled "Customer-Information Registration Apparatus") filed by the same assignee as that of the present application, the above computer can be so constructed that customer information items such as a name and an address corresponding to the telephone number of the customer are stored in a database. According to the construction, when the telephone call from a customer having called at sometime is to be connected to an operator, the customer information corresponding to the calling customer, a transaction input form containing the customer information, or the like can be displayed on the display screen of the client computer allocated to the particular operator. Thus, the operator can readily refer to the customer information of the customer having ever called. Moreover, in entering the inputs (transaction inputs) of an order or the like, such customer information need not be entered each time. These facts lighten a burden on the operator, and improve the efficiency of the dealings with the customer.
Furthermore, the computer can be so constructed that, when the particular operator is to ask for and receive instructions etc. from another veteran or skilled operator, the display of the customer information, the transaction input form containing the customer information, or the like as presented to the particular operator can be collectively transferred to a display device allocated to the veteran or the skilled operator.
Here, the schematic flow of data in the prior-art operator connection system will be explained with reference to FIG. 1.
The operator connection system 1100 illustrated in FIG. 1 is configured of an exchange 1110, a server 1120, a customer database 1130, a network 1140, a plurality of client computers 1150 (1150A, 1150B, . . . ), and a plurality of telephone sets 1160 (1160A, 1160B, . . . ).
The exchange 1110 is connected to a public network 1180, the server 1120 and the plurality of telephone sets 1160 (1160A, 1160B, . . . ). The server 1120 is connected to the exchange 1110 and the customer database 1130. The exchange 1110, the server 1120 and the plurality of client computers 1150 (1150A, 1150B, . . . ) are interconnected through the network 1140.
A customer 1200 gives a telephone call to a predetermined telephone number by the use of his/her telephone set 1190, whereby the telephone set 1190 is connected to the exchange 1110 through the public network 1180. The call given by the customer 1200 is first received by the exchange 1110, in which the calling subscriber number of the customer 1200 is acquired. The calling subscriber number is the telephone number of the telephone set 1190 in the public network 1180 for which the customer 1200 has subscribed. This calling subscriber number is acquirable in the exchange 1110 by the use of, for example, Calling Line Identification Presentation Service for general subscription telephone lines as is experimentally introduced within part of the State of Japan at present by NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Kabushiki-Kaisha). The service is scheduled to be introduced in all parts of Japan in future, and such services have already been introduced in the United States of America, etc.
The calling subscriber number or the like acquired by the exchange 1110 is obtained from this exchange 1110 through a CTI link 1115 by the server 1120.
Subsequently, on condition that the calling subscriber number obtained by the server 1120 exists in the customer database 1130 (in other words, that the particular customer has ever called to the specific service), customer information items (for example, the address and name of the customer, including the calling subscriber number) which correspond to the calling subscriber number within the customer database 1130 are sent to the display device of the client computers 1150A allocated to one (for example, operator-A 1170A) of operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) who are free or not busy, together with a transaction input form or the like and through the network 1140. Simultaneously, the telephone set 1190 of the customer 1200 and the telephone set-A 1160A of the operator-A 1170A are brought into line connection by the exchange 1110 in compliance with a command issued by the server 1120. As a result, the operator-A 1170A can talk with the customer 1200 while watching the customer information of the customer 1200 and the transaction input form or the like.
The customer information items (the data of the address, name etc.) sent to the client computer 1150A which is allocated to the operator-A 1170A are displayed in the state, for example, in which they have already been entered in the input fields of the transaction input form for the address and the name. In the absence of the correspondent calling subscriber number within the customer database 1130, it is signified that the particular customer is a new one for the specific service which is offered by the system 1100. Accordingly, the customer information items (such as the calling subscriber number, address and name of the customer) need to be registered in the customer database 1130 anew by the manual inputs of, e.g., the operator. Herein, the transaction input form is displayed in the state in which nothing is entered in the input fields for the address and the name.
Now, the processes of the respective functions (1121.about.1127) of the server 1120 will be explained with reference to FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 illustrates in more detail the server 1120, client computers 1150 and customer database 1130 which are included in the foregoing operator connection system 1100 depicted in FIG. 1. The server 1120 includes the calling-subscriber-number acquisition function 1121, customer-master registration function 1122 (where the word "master" shall signify "master file", and the same shall apply hereinafter), customer-master search function 1123, transaction input function 1124, customer-information creation function 1125, operator connection function 1126 and communication control function (server) 1127. In addition, the customer database 1130 includes a customer master 1131 and a transaction table 1132. Besides, each of the client computers 1150 includes a communication control function (client) 1151, an input device 1152, a display device 1153 and a printer 1154.
First, in the client computer 1150, the communication control function (client) 1151 causes the display device 1153 to present display information sent from the communication control function (server) 1127 of the server 1120. Further, the communication control function (client) 1151 sends the instructions, data inputs etc. of the corresponding one of the operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) as entered through the input device 1152, to the communication control function (server) 1127 of the server 1120. The input device 1152 is typically a keyboard or a mouse, while the display device 1153 may well be a CRT display or the like display device. The printer 1154 may well be a conventional ink-jet printer or laser printer, while each of the telephone sets 1160 may well be a typical one or a headphone type one.
As stated before, the telephone set 1160 is brought into line connection with the telephone set 1190 of the customer 1200 through the exchange 1110 under the control of the server 1120, finally, it can communicate with the telephone set 1190 of the customer 1200 depicted in FIG. 1. Herein, it is also possible to contrive each of the telephone sets 1160 so as to be connected to the exchange 1110 through the corresponding client computer 1150 as well as the server 1120.
The calling-subscriber-number acquisition function 1121 of the server 1120 acquires the calling subscriber number of the customer 1200 from the exchange 1110 through the CTI link 1115 in a case where the exchange 1110 has received the call from the customer 1200.
The customer-master registration function 1122 has the function of registering customer information about the new customer 1200 of the specific service. For example, this function proceeds in such a way that a customer-master registration form is displayed on the display device 1153 of the client computer 1150, and that the corresponding one of the operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) manually enters the necessary information items into the displayed form, whereby the information items are registered as the customer information into the customer master 1131 which is included in the customer database 1130 connected to the server 1120. The decision of the customer 1200 as the new one is rendered in a case where the calling subscriber number acquired by the calling-subscriber-number acquisition function 1121 has not been found within the customer master 1131 in the customer-master search function 1123 to be explained below (that is, in a case where the new customer 1200 utilizes the specific service for the first time).
The customer-master search function 1123 searches the customer master 1131 for the calling subscriber number acquired by the calling-subscriber-number acquisition function 1121. In a case where the customer information items corresponding to the calling subscriber number exist in the customer master 1131, they are edited solely or in the form in which they have already been entered in the input fields of another form such as the transaction input form, and the edited display data are displayed on the display device 1153 of the client computer 1150, by the customer-information creation function 1125 to be explained below.
When the operator 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) has entered transaction data into the transaction input form displayed on the display device 1153 of the client computer 1150, through the input device 1152 of this client computer 1150, the transaction input function 1124 obtains the transaction data through the communication control function (client) 1151 of the client computer 1150, the network 1140, and the communication control function (server) 1127 of the server 1120, and it executes the check etc. of the transaction data here in the server 1120. Thereafter, the transaction input function 1124 supplements the transaction table 1132 of the customer database 1130 with the contents of the transaction data (that is, information items indicating how the customer 1200 having called has transacted). Although not illustrated in FIG. 2, the operator connection system 1100 can also be contrived so that processes peculiar to the specific service, such as the creations of account data and commodity ordering data, may be automatically executed upon entering the transaction data.
On condition that the customer information items corresponding to the acquired calling subscriber number have been decided to be existent in the customer master 1131 by the customer-master search function 1123, the customer-information creation function 1125 edits the customer information items solely or in the form in which they have already been entered in the input fields of another form such as the transaction input form. In contrast, on condition that the customer information items corresponding to the acquired calling subscriber number have been decided to be nonexistent in the customer master 1131 by the customer-master search function 1123, the transaction input form or the like is edited in the form in which nothing is entered in the input fields of this form. Subsequently, the edited display data are sent through the communication control function (server) 1127, the network 1140 and the communication control function (client) 1151 to, and are indicated on, the display device 1153 of the client computer 1150 allocated to the operator 1170 (for example, the operator-A 1170A) determined so as to serve the current call of the customer 1200 from among the operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) who are free or not busy, by the operator connection function 1126 to be explained below.
When the calling-subscriber-number acquisition function 1121 has acquired the calling subscriber number of the customer 1200, the operator connection function 1126 detects the free operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) by the CTI facility or any other method, and it commands the exchange 1110 through the CTI link 1115 to connect the call from the customer 1200 to the telephone set 1160 (1160A, 1160B, . . . ) of one of the free operators (for example, the operator-A 1170A). That particular one of the free operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) to whom the call is to be connected is determined on the basis of a certain criterion, for example, that the frequencies of the receptions of calls by all the operators 1170 (1170A, 1170B, . . . ) should be equalized. Also, the connection adjusting function itself can be provided to the exchange 1110.
The communication control function (server) 1127 of the server 1120 sends the display data etc. toward the client computer 1150 as stated before, to the communication control function (client) 1151 of the client computer 1150 through the network 1140. Conversely, the function 1127 of the server 1120 receives data, instructions etc. entered using the input device 1152 of the client computer 1150, from the communication control function (client) 1151 of the client computer 1150 through the network 1140.
As thus far explained, the various contrivances for lightening burdens on operators and for improving the efficiency of dealings are made in the prior-art operator connection system. With such a system, however, a telephone call from a customer who called in the past is not always connected to an operator who served the call in the past. In a case where the call has been connected to a different operator, the problem can occur that the communications between both the customer and the operator do not proceed smoothly. As a result, the customer submits even to the situation that different operators serve his/her respective calls, and he/she might be unfavorably impressed due to the situation. It is consequently apprehended that the customer's desire to positively utilize the specific service will weaken.
Actually, in a service such as mail-order sale, a customer often designates a "familiar" operator who serves the calls of the customer frequently. The prior-art system cannot automatically cope with such needs.